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Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) is interested in using generative AI to help speed up the design of its custom chips, Reuters reported, citing the company’s top hardware technology executive, who made the private remarks last month.
The comments were from a speech by Johny Srouji, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware technologies, in Belgium, where he was receiving an award from semiconductor research and development group Imec, the report added.
Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Seeking Alpha.
In his speech, Srouji outlined Apple’s development of custom chips from the first A4 chip in an iPhone in 2010 to its latest chips behind Mac desktop computers and Vision Pro headset, the report noted.
Srouji noted that one of the main lessons Apple learned was that it required using the most advanced tools available to design its chips, including the most recent chip design software from electronic design automation, or EDA, companies.
Cadence Design Systems (CDNS) and Synopsys (SNPS), the two main companies in the EDA sector, have been gearing up to add AI to their offerings, the report noted.
“EDA companies are super critical in supporting our chip design complexities,” said Srouji. “Generative AI techniques have a high potential in getting more design work in less time, and it can be a huge productivity boost.”
According to Srouji, another key lesson learnt by Apple in designing its own chips was to make big bets and not look back.
When Apple moved its Mac computers from Intel’s (INTC) chips to its own chips in 2020, it made no contingency plans in case the move did not work.
“Moving the Mac to Apple Silicon was a huge bet for us. There was no backup plan, no split-the lineup plan, so we went all in, including a monumental software effort,” said Srouji, the report added.